What Is A Microsoft CSP? The Cloud Solution Provider Program Explained

Meta description: Microsoft CSP explained: how the Cloud Solution Provider program works, direct vs indirect partners, NCE terms, Azure plan and how CSP compares with EA and MCA.

A Microsoft CSP is a partner authorized under Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider program to resell Microsoft cloud subscriptions, such as Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and Azure, and to bill and support the customer directly. You buy your licenses from the partner instead of from Microsoft, the partner sends the invoice, and the partner is your first call for support. Under the hood, every CSP purchase still runs on Microsoft’s own contract, the Microsoft Customer Agreement, and on the pricing rules of the New Commerce Experience.

This guide, What Is A Microsoft CSP? The Cloud Solution Provider Program Explained, walks through how the program is structured, how CSP licensing works in practice, how it compares with an Enterprise Agreement and a direct Microsoft Customer Agreement, and how to pick a Microsoft CSP provider that is worth the margin it earns.

How The Cloud Solution Provider Program Works

The Cloud Solution Provider program is a sales channel run through Microsoft Partner Center. Microsoft authorizes partners to sell its cloud services, and in recent years also some perpetual software and server licenses, inside a single commercial framework. The partner owns the customer relationship: it quotes, provisions the subscriptions in your tenant, invoices you, and handles the first line of technical and billing support.

Before any partner can place a CSP order for you, your organization must accept the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) for your region. That matters because it means your usage rights come from Microsoft’s standard terms, not from a contract you negotiate with the reseller. The partner’s own agreement with you sits on top and covers services, payment terms and support levels.

For the buyer, the practical effect is one vendor for licensing, billing and day-to-day help, often bundled with managed services. For Microsoft, CSP pushes small and mid-size customers (and a growing share of larger ones) toward partners who can sell, deploy and support the products at scale.

Direct-Bill Partners Vs Indirect Providers And Indirect Resellers

CSP has two tiers, and knowing which tier your partner sits in tells you a lot about who actually handles your account. Microsoft’s current documentation calls the wholesaler in the two-tier model a distributor; you will still see the older term “indirect provider” used widely.

Direct-Bill Partners

A direct-bill partner buys straight from Microsoft and sells to customers with its own staff. It handles billing, provisioning and support on its own. The bar is high. Per Microsoft Learn, new direct-bill applicants need at least 12 months as an indirect reseller, at least USD 1 million in trailing 12-month CSP revenue, at least one Solutions Partner designation, a paid Advanced Support for Partners or Premier Support for Partners plan, a passing capabilities assessment covering sell, secure and support, and completion of the mandatory Partner Center security requirements. Since October 2025, existing direct-bill partners are also reassessed every year, and those that fall short are moved back to indirect reseller status.

Indirect Providers (Distributors)

Distributors are large direct-bill companies that buy from Microsoft and resell through a network of smaller partners. They supply the provisioning platform, credit, billing tools and escalation support. Examples include global IT distributors and cloud marketplaces built for managed service providers. Most end customers never deal with them directly.

Indirect Resellers

Indirect resellers buy through a distributor and sell to you. Microsoft requires them to hold active Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program membership and a relationship with an authorized distributor, but there is no revenue floor. Most local managed service providers and Microsoft 365 consultancies sit here. The reseller owns your relationship, while the distributor sits behind it for billing infrastructure and escalations.

Tier is not a quality score. A small indirect reseller with strong engineers can serve a 200-seat company better than a large direct-bill partner that treats licensing as a transaction. What tier does tell you is how many parties sit between you and Microsoft when something breaks, and who extends you credit.

CSP Licensing Under The New Commerce Experience

All seat-based CSP licensing now runs on the New Commerce Experience (NCE), which Microsoft introduced in 2022. NCE replaced the old, flexible CSP model, where seats could be cut almost at will, with fixed terms and short cancellation windows. Understanding these rules is the single most useful thing a buyer can do before signing a CSP order.

Term Lengths And Billing Frequency

• Monthly term: renews every month and can be cancelled or reduced at the end of any month. Microsoft has described monthly terms as carrying a premium of about 20% over the annual price for the same product.
• Annual term: a 12-month commitment with the price locked for the term. You can pay upfront or monthly; since April 1, 2025, Microsoft prices annual subscriptions billed monthly 5% higher than annual subscriptions paid upfront for Microsoft 365, Office 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform and several other online services.
• Triennial term: a 36-month commitment offered on selected products, with the price locked for the full three years. Availability varies by product and market.

The Seven-Day Cancellation Window

For license-based subscriptions, NCE allows cancellation or seat reduction within 7 calendar days of purchase or renewal, with a prorated refund. After that window you are committed for the full term. You can add seats at any time, but you cannot remove them mid-term on an annual or triennial subscription. Microsoft’s policy also makes the partner liable for the full term if a customer stops paying, which is why many CSPs ask for credit checks, upfront payment or a monthly term for new or riskier customers.

The practical pattern most well-run buyers settle on: keep a stable core of seats on annual terms for the price, and put seasonal or uncertain headcount on monthly terms so it can flex. A good Microsoft CSP provider will model that split for you before the renewal date, not after.

Azure Through CSP: The Azure Plan

Azure is sold through CSP as the Azure plan, which replaced the older per-subscription Azure CSP offer. It gives customers on the Microsoft Customer Agreement access to Azure services at published pay-as-you-go rates, and one Azure plan can hold multiple Azure subscriptions, so new subscriptions do not need separate orders.

Pricing on the Azure plan starts from Microsoft’s published rates. Reservations and savings plans can also be bought through the partner, and those commitments are usually where real savings come from. Partners that run 24×7 operations on a customer’s Azure estate, with ongoing administrative access, can qualify for partner earned credit, a credit Microsoft pays for managing those services. Some partners pass part of it back as a discount, others use it to fund managed services. Ask which approach your partner takes. One gap to know about: CSP does not offer Azure Dev/Test pricing, so teams that rely on Dev/Test subscriptions under an EA should price that difference before moving.

Two operational points matter. First, the partner typically holds administrative access to your Azure environment through granular delegated admin privileges (GDAP) or Azure Lighthouse, so review exactly which roles they hold. Second, Azure support in CSP flows through the partner, not Microsoft, so the partner’s cloud engineering depth matters far more for Azure than for Microsoft 365 seat sales. If the partner will also build or run your Azure foundation, ask how they approach Azure landing zones and how they review workloads against the cost and reliability pillars of the Azure Well-Architected Framework.

What Support And Billing A CSP Provides

In CSP, the partner is responsible for your billing and first-line support. In practice that usually covers:

• One consolidated invoice for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure and often third-party software, in your local currency, on payment terms the partner sets.
• Provisioning and license management: adding seats, changing plans, timing renewals and catching the 7-day window when you need to correct an order.
• Technical support: the partner triages tickets and escalates to Microsoft through its own partner support contract when needed. Response times are set by the partner’s terms, not Microsoft’s.
• Optional managed services: security monitoring, device management with Microsoft Intune, identity management in Microsoft Entra ID, backup and Azure operations, sold on top of the licenses.

The quality range is wide. Some CSPs run 24/7 service desks with certified engineers; others are license resellers with an email inbox. The contract should state support hours, response targets and escalation paths in writing.

CSP Vs Enterprise Agreement Vs Microsoft Customer Agreement

CSP is one of several ways to buy from Microsoft. The right channel depends mostly on size, how much you want to negotiate directly, and how much hands-on help you need.

Enterprise Agreement (EA)

The Enterprise Agreement is Microsoft’s traditional volume licensing contract for large organizations, usually a three-year commitment with an annual true-up and a licensing solution partner involved. The EA has been changing. Microsoft’s own licensing news confirms that from November 1, 2025, online services under the EA and MPSA moved to a single price across price levels A through D, aligned with the pricing published on Microsoft.com, applied at each customer’s next renewal. In other words, the tiered list-price discounts that once made the EA attractive for online services are gone; on-premises software pricing was not affected.

Separately, Microsoft has been steering many EA customers toward the Microsoft Customer Agreement for enterprise (MCA-E) at renewal, particularly for Azure. Licensing analysts report that Microsoft is being more selective about renewing EAs, especially for smaller enterprises, but Microsoft has not published a single public cutoff. If your EA renews in the next year, ask your Microsoft account team directly which options you will be offered.

Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA And MCA-E)

The Microsoft Customer Agreement is the standard, non-expiring agreement that sits under most modern Microsoft purchases. It comes in three main routes: self-serve purchases from Microsoft online, purchases through a CSP partner, and MCA-E, where a large customer buys directly from Microsoft with a field account team and negotiated terms. Billing under MCA is organized into billing accounts, billing profiles and invoice sections, which differs from the EA enrollment structure, so finance and FinOps teams should plan for changes to reports, APIs and invoices when moving.

Purchase Channels Compared

Factor	CSP	Enterprise Agreement	MCA-E (Direct)	MCA Self-Serve
Who you buy from	Microsoft partner	Microsoft, via a licensing partner	Microsoft account team	Microsoft online
Typical buyer	Small to mid-size, increasingly larger	Large enterprise (renewals now selective)	Large enterprise	Very small businesses, individual teams
Contract terms	Monthly, annual or triennial per subscription	Usually three years with annual true-up	Evergreen agreement, negotiated commitments	Monthly or annual per subscription
Who invoices	Partner	Microsoft or licensing partner	Microsoft	Microsoft
First-line support	Partner	Microsoft support contract	Microsoft support contract	Microsoft standard support
Flexibility to reduce seats	Monthly terms or 7-day window only	Annual reductions on eligible products	Per negotiated terms	Monthly terms or 7-day window only
Azure purchasing	Azure plan at pay-as-you-go rates	Azure prepayment or commitment	Azure consumption commitments	Pay-as-you-go
Bundled services	Common (managed IT, security, Azure ops)	Separate contracts	Separate contracts	None

Pros And Cons Of Buying Through A Microsoft CSP

Advantages

• One vendor and one invoice for licenses, Azure and services.
• Monthly terms available for flexible headcount, with no multi-year enrollment.
• A support contact that knows your environment, rather than a generic queue.
• Partners can bundle deployment, security and managed services with licensing, and sometimes discount licenses to win that work.
• Local currency, local payment terms and an advisor who watches renewal dates.

Disadvantages

• NCE annual and triennial terms are rigid once the 7-day window closes.
• Support quality depends entirely on the partner, and some resell without real engineering depth.
• The partner holds admin access to your tenant, which requires governance and periodic review.
• Switching partners mid-term is possible but takes coordination, and bundled service contracts can create lock-in.
• Very large customers may get better leverage negotiating directly with Microsoft.

How To Choose A Microsoft CSP Provider

Treat the choice of a Microsoft licensing partner like choosing a managed service provider, because that is usually what you are buying. These questions separate capable partners from license brokers.

Are You Direct-Bill Or Indirect, And Who Is Your Distributor?

Either answer can work. What you want is transparency about who sits behind the partner, who handles escalations to Microsoft, and what happens to your subscriptions if the reseller relationship ends.

Which Solutions Partner Designations Do You Hold?

Designations such as Modern Work, Security or Infrastructure (Azure) indicate verified skills and customer success in that area. Check them in Microsoft’s partner directory rather than relying on a logo on a website. Our guide to Microsoft Solutions Partner designations explains what each one requires.

What Exactly Is In Your Support Agreement?

Ask for support hours, response time targets by severity, the escalation path to Microsoft, and whether Azure support is included or billed separately. If you run production workloads on Azure, insist on 24/7 coverage.

How Do You Handle Renewals And The Cancellation Window?

A strong partner reviews seat counts and term mix before every renewal and flags orders inside the 7-day window. Ask how they align co-terminated subscriptions and how they advise on annual versus monthly terms.

What Admin Access Will You Need In Our Tenant?

Partners should use GDAP with the least privileged roles needed, time-limited where possible. Ask for a list of the roles they will request and how they log administrative activity.

How Do You Price Licenses And Pass Through Azure Savings?

CSP partners set their own resale prices, so compare quotes line by line against Microsoft’s list prices. For Azure, ask whether any partner earned credit or promotional discount is shared and how they manage reservations and savings plans.

If you need a partner with deep Azure operations, start with our ranking of top Microsoft Azure partners and consultants. For broader multi-cloud advice, see our list of top cloud consulting companies.

Switching To CSP Or Between CSP Partners

Moving Microsoft 365 and other seat-based products from an EA to CSP usually happens at the EA renewal, since EA commitments run to term. Microsoft gives partners a channel transfer process in Partner Center for this, designed to move subscriptions without downtime.

Azure is handled separately. Microsoft’s EA to CSP for Azure transfer moves subscriptions from a direct EA (or MCA-E) into the customer’s Azure plan while workloads keep running, and subscription and resource IDs stay the same. Reservations and savings plans can move with the subscriptions. Only certain partners can run this transfer: direct-bill partners with an Azure Solutions Partner designation or Azure Expert MSP status, plus some distributors. Microsoft widened that access in July 2026. Indirect EAs are not supported through this route.

Per Microsoft’s transfer documentation, a few things do not come across: historical cost and usage data stops being accessible after the move, Power BI reports built on the old billing connector stop working, your existing Azure support plan does not transfer, and SaaS marketplace subscriptions move separately. Download cost data and invoices before you start.

Moving between CSP partners is done through a subscription transfer in Partner Center, which keeps services running without reprovisioning. Before any switch, collect a full inventory of subscriptions, terms and renewal dates, export your Azure cost history, and remove the outgoing partner’s admin relationships once the transfer completes.

What Changed For CSP Buyers In 2025 And 2026

Several recent Microsoft changes affect how CSP pricing compares with the alternatives, as of October 2026:

• Monthly billing premium (April 2025): annual subscriptions paid monthly now cost 5% more than the same subscription paid upfront, across CSP, MCA-E and online purchases.
• Stricter direct-bill rules (October 2025): direct-bill partners are reassessed every year on revenue, support plan, security and capabilities.
• EA price levels flattened (November 2025): EA and MPSA customers lost tiered volume pricing on online services at renewal, which narrows the price gap between the EA and CSP.
• Microsoft 365 list price increases (July 2026): Microsoft raised commercial list prices on several suites. For example, Microsoft 365 E3 went from USD 36 to USD 39 and Business Standard from USD 12.50 to USD 14 per the US list, while Business Premium was unchanged. Existing subscriptions keep their price until renewal, which makes annual and triennial terms bought before a price change more valuable.
• Wider EA to CSP Azure access (July 2026): more partners can now move Azure from an EA into CSP without service disruption.

Prices above are Microsoft’s US list prices as of October 2026; your CSP partner’s resale price and local currency pricing can differ.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Buying Through A Microsoft CSP Cheaper Than Buying Direct?

Sometimes. CSP partners set their own prices and may discount licenses to win service work, but many sell at or near list price. The bigger savings usually come from right-sizing seats, choosing the right term and managing Azure commitments, which a good partner helps with.

Can I Cancel A CSP Subscription?

Under the New Commerce Experience you can cancel or reduce license-based subscriptions within 7 days of purchase or renewal for a prorated refund. After that, annual and triennial terms run to the end. Monthly terms can be cancelled at the end of any month.

Do I Still Have A Contract With Microsoft In CSP?

Yes. Your organization accepts the Microsoft Customer Agreement, which governs your use of Microsoft products. Your commercial and support arrangement is with the cloud solution provider.

Can Large Enterprises Use CSP?

Yes. There is no upper size limit, and with the EA becoming more selective, more large organizations are comparing CSP with MCA-E. Very large buyers should still compare partner quotes with what Microsoft offers directly.

Conclusion

A Microsoft CSP gives you one partner for licenses, Azure, billing and support, under Microsoft’s standard customer agreement. The program works well when the partner adds real engineering and advisory value, and poorly when it only resells seats. Learn the NCE term rules, choose your term mix deliberately, and pick a partner whose designations and support terms match the workloads you run.

To compare partners, see our rankings of Microsoft Azure partners and consultants and Microsoft Dynamics 365 companies, or browse the full Microsoft Azure hub for guides on licensing, cost and architecture.